Prescriptions still illegible [ Tritiyo Matra News ]

Prescriptions still illegible

Local March 04, 2017

Doctors across continue writing prescription illegibly as the Directorate General of Health Services and Bangladesh Medical and Dental Council seem to be indifferent to fully implement High Court directives for ensuring that doctors prescribe in capital letters in a legible manner.
The Directorate General of Health Services issued circular asking doctors to write legible prescriptions on Thursday, 52 days after the High Court issued the directive.
The High Court bench of Justice Naima Haider and Justice Abu Taher Md Saifur Rahman on January 9 asked the Directorate General of Health Services and Bangladesh Medical and Dental Council to issue circulars in 30 days asking all physicians to write legible prescriptions.
It asked the director-general of the health services and the registrar of the council to submit compliance reports to the court in six weeks. It also asked the authorities to explain in four weeks why they would not be directed to take appropriate and effective steps for ensuring that physicians would prescribe in capital letters in a legible manner or provide patients with printed prescription.
Asked about the delay in the issuance of the circular, health service director (admin) Samir Kanti Sarkar, who signed it, said, ‘We issued the circular within the stipulated 30-day timeframe as we receive the court order on February 14.’
The council issued the circular on February 17.
Health services and council officials, however, said that they could only issue the circular but not to ensure the writing of legible prescriptions by the doctors.
Visiting the hospitals of Dhaka Medical College and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, two busiest public hospitals in Dhaka, on Thursday, almost all of the prescriptions and instructions were found illegible or hardly legible.
Only one prescription at the medical college hospital and none at the university hospital, in a random checking for one hour, was found written in capital letters.
Asked why doctors were not following the instruction, the university’s director (hospital) Brigadier General Abdullah Al Harun said, ‘We are motivating the doctors, but it will take time to change the long going practice’.
Health services director (hospitals) AKM Saidur Rahman shifted the responsibility to the council.
He said that the matter should be monitored by the council as all the doctors, either private or in public service, belonged to the council, the statutory regulatory body of the doctors.
Medical and dental council registrar ZH Basunia said, ‘We have issued the circular, but it is beyond our capacity to monitor the prescribing by 80,000 doctors in the country.’
If patients feel aggrieved at illegible prescriptions, they can go to the courts against the doctors concerned, he said.
‘It is not a matter of pressure, but the doctors should voluntary write prescription in block letters, he said.
Health minister Mohammad Nasim said that it was the doctors’ ethical duty to write legible prescriptions.
‘Following High Court directives, we have issued circulars asking doctors to write prescription readably, the doctors should follow it,’ he said.
Several drug sellers in the capital said they were not finding any change in the prescriptions.
Mohammad Sabbir, a drug seller at Janapriya Pharmacy at Shahbagh, said they found no difference in the prescription after the High Court order.
The High Court order came following a writ petition against the backdrop that sloppy handwritings of doctors in prescriptions were bearing serious risks for drug retailers of giving wrong medicines to patients.
Health rights campaigners and experts said it was a sheer irresponsibility of doctors that the patients and drug sellers could not read the prescriptions easily, exposing them to making mistakes or taking wrong drug.
‘About 10 per cent prescription we cannot read,’ said Abidul Islam Sumon, owner of A to Z Pharma at Shahbagh.
Drug sellers said they became confused while reading prescriptions as the letters a, o, e, c, i, l, t, u, v and y were mostly illegible.
Patients and their relatives were also seen baffling, as they could not read the prescriptions.
Sumaya Shakira, a housewife at Khilgaon, who recently underwent gallbladder surgery by a professor at the university, said that she was prescribed ‘Etodolac’ but it was spelt like ‘Etiselc’.
‘My husband was told by all pharmacies he visited that “Etiselc” was not available and later after second contact by the hospital authorities, the doctor confirmed it as “Etodolac”,’ she said.
Gonosasthaya Kendra trustee Zafrullah Chowdhury said there were about 27,000 drug brands and many of their names were similar.
For example, he said that ‘suxa’ and ‘sauxa’ were two closely named brands but ‘suxa’ was used for anaesthesia while ‘sauxa’ was a lifesaving drug.
Zafrullah said that it was not so difficult for doctors to write legible prescriptions but they showed sheer irresponsibility.
‘The doctors should write legible prescription with generic names of drug so that the patients and drug sellers do not make mistake,’ he said.
Zafrullah added that the High Court directives would be more welcoming if it made mandatory the writing of generic names along with the brand names of drug in the prescription.
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University pharmacology professor Sayedur Rahman said that there were about 27,000 brands of drug in the market and none could rule out that no confusion would be occur because of closely spelt brands.
‘The hand writing should be clear and in a way so that at least the drug sellers and patients cannot make mistake,’ he said.